The proposed zoning change that would allow a Walmart Neighborhood Market to be built in western Russellville has become a hot potato — this time, the Russellville City Council tossed the issue back to the city’s Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission heard the Walmart zoning request twice last fall — rejecting the plan when the request was to move the zoning on the lot at West Main Street and Vancouver Avenue from residential to commercial, and then approving the request when Walmart asked that the property be zoned as a planned unit development.

Then, in the last City Council meeting of 2012, that Council passed on considering the ordinance and sent it to the new Council, which took office in January.

On Thursday night, the Council started the process all over again by sending the zoning change request back to the Planning Commission. Or did it? Does the process of changing the zoning on the property have to start completely over?

“I’m not sure about that,” said Russellville City Planner David Harris. “I’ll have to get with them (council members) and with Trey Smith (city attorney) and decide what to do. This is not something I’ve experienced before.”

Harris warned the Council at Thursday’s meeting that sending the item back to the Planning Commission wasn’t a prudent plan.

Planning Commission Chairman Dennis Boyd said he is unclear what the Council wants from his commission since the group has heard the plan twice and made its recommendations to the Council.

“My initial reaction is that I’m very disappointed,” Boyd said. “It seems to me the City Council has all of the information they need. I think Walmart and the people of Russellville deserve a straight up or down vote.”

Boyd said he voted in favor of the rezoning change for a PUD for the property when the Planning Commission voted 5-3 recommending the Council approve the measure.

“I talked to the city planner and the city attorney, and I believe it meets the criteria for a PUD,” Boyd said. “I am at a loss to know what they want the Planning Commission to do now.”

Boyd said he takes his position on the commission seriously and works to understand the various issues that come before the group.

In this case, he explained it was a difficult decision for him to vote in favor of allowing the zoning change for the property because he knows people who live in the neighborhood behind the lot where the new Neighborhood Market will be built if the zoning approval is granted.

“Walmart had a strong presentation the second time they came before the Planning Commission,” Boyd said, and company officials addressed a number of issues in ways that convinced him that the PUD was the correct zoning for the property.

Boyd said he would cast a yes vote again unless significant new information comes along comes that changes his mind.

Russellville Mayor Bill Eaton agreed that he, too, doesn’t know what the next step in this process is, but he knows what he wants to happen next — he wants the City Council to take action on the rezoning issue and stop making requests to Walmart every month.

Eaton said it appears to him the continued delays in voting on the issue is simply a tactic by council members to delay the process.

“Every month they (Walmart officials) have come back with what we addressed with them the month before, and then each month there’s something else tossed out by one council member or another,” Eaton said. “Part of this is a tactic. Yes, part of it does has to do with compliance, but mostly it’s a delay tactic for some reason.”

Eaton stressed he doesn’t know what the Planning Commission will or should do next.

“They may tell us they looked at it and passed it,” he said. “A PUD isn’t something we do every day. I think they looked at it very closely the first time. I think commission members take their job very seriously, and they’re not a rubber stamp for anything.”

Eaton is unclear how long the Planning Commission will take with the issue, and then, when it comes back to the Council, the ordinance would likely have to be read three times over three meetings before it would be voted on by the Council.

The mayor said some Council members are feeling pressure from the community on the topic.

“Council members tell me they’re getting pressure from a lot of people on this. I say, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ You’ve got to realize that people are going to put pressure on you,” Eaton said. “What are we going to do, just keep bouncing stuff around and not make a decision?”